banging on your bedroom walls
by sarsaparillia
Summary: With a boy like that, it's serial. — Emma/Killian, college!AU.


**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Sonya, on her birthday.  
**notes**: barfs.

**title**: banging on your bedroom walls  
**summary**: With a boy like that, it's serial. — Emma/Killian, college!AU.

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Emma Blanchard-Nolan wasn't planning on falling in love.

Actually, she hadn't been planning on going to college, either. Fate worked in mysterious ways, or whatever, but Emma didn't really believe in fate. She had too much other shit on her hands to deal with right now.

(God, she hated freshman.)

The story went that after she'd graduated from high school, her mother had looked her in the eye and said _you can go to college or you can go to college. Take your pick_.

Well, that had been a really easy choice. Thanks _so_ much, mom.

But it turned out that Emma was much better at college than she was at high school. Being a delinquent was a hell of a lot harder when you were actually _paying_ to go to school, and you had four essays due in three weeks. You couldn't exactly break into school buildings when they were open basically twenty-four-seven.

And besides, learning about the history of criminal psychology was a hell of a lot more interesting than _biology_.

And the job wasn't that bad, either. Late in her junior year, she'd been approached by the Head of the History Department and asked if she wanted a job as a TA for a new class they were offering the next semester—a class about the history of piracy. It was an introductory class for freshman, and it would pay both her tuition and living expenses.

Emma's response had been two words:

_Hell. Yeah_.

That was then.

This was now, and now, she was _really fucking regretting it_.

Because they'd told her who would be lecturing—Regina Mills, AKA Emma's favourite professor AKA Emma's mother's step-mother who was also the coolest human being Emma had ever had the fortune to meet—but they hadn't told her who else they'd hired as the other TA. When she'd taken the job, she hadn't thought anything of it, but she really probably should have.

Because the person they'd hired as the other TA was Killian "Hook" Jones.

Emma Blanchard-Nolan _hated_ Killian "Hook" Jones.

There were plenty of reasons for this, but most of them started and ended with the fact that he was an arrogant serial flirt who wouldn't keep his hands to himself. And the worst part—the _worst_ part—was that he had the _gall_ to insinuate that she didn't _deserve_ her position. They'd had classes together, before—mostly naval history and medieval literature classes. They spent most of said classes arguing about everything from the colour of the wood panelling to the likelihood of women on naval ships, whether disguised as men or not. They argued about Anastasia's great escape, about the guard on prince Alexei, about Marxist economics versus capitalism, about literally the everything and the nothing.

Frankly, there was nothing they _couldn't_ argue about, because Killian made her want to _win_ in a way that no one else did. It was probably why her grades had been so very good in the classes they'd shared.

And so Emma had been both furiously excited and dreading the first day of her TA job.

It went about as well as expected.

Which is to say, _not_.

She'd verbally punched him in the face the second half of class, cut him down with words like _sexist lug head_ and _scum-sucking cuttlefish_ and _don't you have __**any**__ respect_ and the entire female half and the freshman class had cheered.

Which?

_Yes_.

She'd proceeded to finish her part of the lecture, smiled sweetly, and took her seat. Regina took over there, a horrible little smirk on her lips. It promised retribution for everyone involved, but Emma couldn't bring herself to be too worried. Regina liked her—was her _godmother_, in fact—and Killian had _deserved_ the dressing down so, so badly.

So he hadn't bothered her much, after that.

At least, not for the first week.

But he did watch her, for that first quiet week, watched her like a hawk might watch a viper—a respected enemy, but also a source of food if the chance arose. Emma didn't give him the time of day, and she thought that that probably made him angrier. She felt like they were in a fencing match, moving forwards and backwards, swinging words instead of foils, but never quite touching. It was an apt analogy; one that Emma liked enough to smirk about in her more vengeful moments.

After that first week, though, things changed.

He was still an incorrigible flirt, but he managed to keep his hands to himself, and he stopped hitting on the undergrads. That was an improvement, at the very least, but Emma still eyed him a bit like he was a slug about to shrivel from too much salt.

They got along, warily, and the class was very popular.

(Regina spent most of her lecture time laughing into a cup of gin. Emma wanted to hate her, but it was hard to hate someone who so clearly enjoyed what was going on in front of her.)

"Love, walk with me," he said, one day. It was December, and somewhere along the way they'd become something like friends. Albeit, friends who would probably stab each other in the back if given a second's chance, but he kept her on her toes and kept her thinking.

If he was anyone else, Emma would have been so into him it would have been embarrassing. She rolled her eyes. "Don't call me that, _Jones_."

"_Emma_," he said, rolling his eyes in return, "would you _walk_ with me?"

She hated his accent so much. English bastard and his sexy uptick talk. She had so not signed up for this. "Fine. What's up?"

"I have a… problem," he said delicately.

"If you have gonorrhea again, I'm going to laugh so hard," Emma told him.

"I have _not_ had one of your horrid American diseases, my love, and you'd know that if you'd just let me get you into bed—" he leered.

Emma shoved him. "Oh my god, shut _up_. Seriously, what's your problem?"

He looked at her, messy-haired and dark-eyed, lips drawn tight across his face. "I think I've—there's someone I care about very much, Miss Blanchard-Nolan, someone whom I didn't think I even _could_ care about."

Emma had a sudden, intensely bad feeling about where this conversation was going.

"What are you talking about, Jones?"

"My name is Killian, love."

"And mine is _Emma_," she retorted. The snow crunched under her boots, brilliant all around them as it caught the sunlight and reflected it back like a million diamonds. She brushed long blonde hair out of her face, and turned to glare at him.

He was a lot closer than she'd anticipated.

"Killian, what are you—"

"May I kiss you, Emma Blanchard-Nolan?"

Emma's brain short-circuited. "Um. I. What?"

"May I?" he asked again, insisted, quiet, mouth an inch from hers. She'd never realized that his eyes had tiny flecks of green amid the dark, dark brown.

Emma swallowed hard. "Um? Sure?"

And then he did. He pressed that inch forward, until her lips sealed across her. He tasted like salt and caramel. And for some reason, Emma thought of the sea, wind and rime thick in her hair, the billow of sails on a ship that only existed in fairy tales.

"Wow, um," she said.

Killian stayed very close. "Do you know how long I have wanted to do that, love?"

"Nope," Emma said honestly. "I didn't even—I didn't have a _clue_."

He chuckled, a little like sadness, a little like exasperation. His hands found hers, fingers cold and chapped in the early December cold.

"Well," he said," you'll just have to find out, won't you?"

Emma looked up at him, at the way his nose was a little hooked and his smile was a little crooked, and thought _this could be good. We could be good_.

"Okay," she said. "Let's try it."

—

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_fin_.


End file.
